No rollback of Fair Work, say unions

The union movement is fighting back against a business campaign to reform Labor’s industrial laws, warning new Workplace Relations Minister
Bill Shorten
it will not accept any ­rollback of the regime.

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary
Jeff Lawrence
said yesterday that any outcome from the review of the Fair Work Act had to reflect changes to the Labor policy platform earlier this month to allow “last resort" arbitration of disputes.

Mr Lawrence said the review also had to examine the problem of ­deadlocked bargaining in disputes such as the row at bionic-ear maker
Cochlear
and other companies, while also looking at ways to spread ­enterprise ­bargaining into new ­sectors of the economy.

“We will resist it if it is used as some sort of attempt to wind back what’s been achieved under the Fair Work Act," he said of the review.

Mr Shorten is holding meetings today to discuss options for reform before announcing the long-awaited review of the act, and who will head it, as early as tomorrow.

The minister called the review a “first-order priority" as he hit back yesterday at Coalition jibes over the timing of the inquiry, which the ­government promised to start by the end of the year.

As business leaders called for a wide review that linked workplace laws to productivity, unions bluntly ruled out any changes to the overall thrust of workplace reforms that were won at the 2007 federal election and legislated the following year.

“We will be making a submission to the inquiry but it’s not necessarily the main exercise, the main game, from our point of view," Mr Lawrence said. “It’s one of the things that will be happening in the first half of the year."

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Labor delegates voted unanimously at the party’s national conference in Sydney in early December to replace the industrial relations chapter of the ALP policy platform, adding support for future enterprise agreements to allow for arbitration.

But employer groups are fiercely resisting this policy out of concern it would reinstate the centralised workplace regime used decades ago.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive
Peter Anderson
said a form of compulsory arbitration would not only recentralise the system but also change the way enterprise bargaining was conducted.

Mr Anderson warned that negotiations would be completely different because unions would be able to seek arbitration by Fair Work Australia at the end of the process.

Australian Industry Group chief executive
Heather Ridout
said the review had to be comprehensive and focused on practical results, including the impact of the Fair Work laws on economic output. “We’re not blaming the act for productivity not rising, but the act has to be one of the issues contributing to it," Ms Ridout said.

Ai Group has lodged 15 appeals against decisions under the law over the past year, including an application to the Federal Court on Friday against a Fair Work Australia decision that restricted a company from hiring ­contractors.

In 2009, when the Fair Work Act was introduced, Ai Group counted 60 provisions increasing union power.

Business Council of Australia chief executive
Jennifer Westacott
said yesterday the review’s focus had to be on the economy rather than technical matters of law. “We want the review to be broad and we want it to closely examine whether the operation of the act is helping or constraining our competitiveness," she said.

The BCA has urged the government to appoint an independent panel of experts to conduct the review rather than restrict it to a focus on the law by an industrial relations specialist.

“Our concern is the performance of the system, not just the technical aspects of the legislation," Ms Westacott said. A narrow and legalistic perspective would not address the bigger questions of how to improve the law to lift productivity and economic output, she added.

Mr Shorten is to announce the review this week, sparking a tussle between employers pushing for changes as unions seek a broader role for Fair Work Australia in the arbitration of disputes.

Mr Shorten was out of the country at the end of last week, when he flew to India to discuss financial services trade, but he spoke to some business leaders soon after being sworn in as Workplace Relations Minister on Wednesday.

Those meetings sent a reassuring message to industry groups that the new minister would resist pressure from within the caucus for tougher restrictions on employers.

“We committed to releasing what we’re going to do before Christmas," Mr Shorten told The Australian Financial Review yesterday. “It is a first-order issue to get it under way."

While some caucus members want the law to be toughened to restrict employers who try to lock staff out of the workplace, Mr Shorten has assured business he will take a ­“middle of the road" approach.

Mr Shorten attacked the Coalition for suggesting the review was behind schedule and insisted it would be done according to the government’s original commitments. “I love getting a timetable from the Liberals on industrial relations – why don’t they review their own policies?" he said.

Former ACTU secretary
Greg Combet
, who is now the Minister for both Industry and Climate Change, argued that the main drivers of improved ­productivity were boosting skills, research, scientific and investment in new technology.

Mr Combet said industrial relations was important but Labor would maintain its commitment to collective bargaining as a safety net. Apart from the legal framework, managers had to engage the workforce and “find better ways of working".

Treasurer
Wayne Swan
, who is acting prime minister while Julia Gillard takes a short holiday, issued an economic note yesterday that emphasised the need for fairness in the workplace.

“Labor has always believed in a society that rewards the hard work and effort of workers and businesses, a society where the benefits of economic strength flow to everyone, not just the lucky few, and a society where anyone can succeed no matter who their parents are or what town or suburb they grew up in," Mr Swan said.